Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/296

 *able postulate in your premises, but which turns out to be a begging of the question; and, behold, you gain your point and triumph; until, it is found that your adversary, having access to the same stores of arithmetic, proves his case, and refutes yours, with the same facility. Such are statistics when severed from sound principle and plain reasoning. But how little are these to be relied on when prepared by those in the employ of one party? To trust oneself among such details would be perilous in the extreme. "My noble friend has fared forth into the labyrinth with such bad success, that his fate seems to warn me how I venture to follow his perilous course. But there remains to deter me, like a beacon on the same coast, the sad wreck of another adventurer, the good ship Board of Trade, G. R. Porter, Master, cast away on the shoals of these faithless waters." The noble Lord then assailed Mr. Porter with the whole force of his sarcasm. He said: "Mr. Porter, showing the comparative progress of English and American tonnage, takes the whole of one part and only part of the other, and thus makes out the result which suits his argument. Lord Hardwicke, the chairman, put this question to the witness, after stating the entire difference of the two returns, the difference being total in one case and partial in the other. 'Then, consequently, these returns are not to be taken compared together, as showing in any degree the comparative value of British and American tonnage?' Mark the answer of the hapless Mr. Porter. 'Certainly not.'" The noble Lord then went on tearing, in the opinion of the opponents of the Bill, Mr. Porter's evidence to shreds. "I am reminded,"